Bermudian reinsurer PartnerRe Ltd. has provided an initial estimate for the scale of losses it believes it will face due to the earthquake and tsunami on 11th March in Japan. They believe that the total net impact of these events will be approximately $500m, primarily in their catastrophe business. PartnerRe said that the loss estimate are related to all of their non-life exposures as well as some insurance-linked securities which they say are expected to be impacted by the events in Japan.

PartnerRe are known to be an investor in catastrophe bonds and other types of insurance-linked securities. It seems likely that they could have an exposure to the Muteki Ltd. cat bond which is expected to be a total loss.

Yesterday, we reported that Alterra Capital disclosed that they have a £25m exposure to Japan quake linked cat bonds. It will be interesting to see what proportion of the eventual catastrophe bond losses from Japan come back to reinsurers.